SFS 2nd Conference

SFS 2nd Conference

Friday, April 18, 2014

PROTEST AGAINST FEE HIKE: LATHI-CHARGE AND POLITICS OF NEO-LIBERALISM


On 18th march, Chandigarh police lathi-charged protesting students to suppress their struggle against Fee hike. The Students were taken to PS sec. – 11 and were brutally tortured, for opposing the entry of police in University Campus. The police claiming to be responsible to maintain law and order, showed what ‘Law & order’ really means. Police while registering fake cases to suppress dissent, mocked the very constitution that claims the country to be the Worlds’ Largest Democracy.

The question is why university resorted to such measures instead of solving the issue? 
The whole matter was concerned with fee hike, against which SFS started a chain hunger strike since 24th February that was converted to indefinite hunger strike after no response from authorities. As the authorities tried to suppress the struggle, the struggle fueled by the students’ unity forced the authorities to bow.
The university authorities gave the argument that fee is hiked due to rising deficit. The central government will only give grant to university in case if they mobilize their resources themselves and hike at least 8-10% fees every year. Instead of opposing the government, university is increasing the load on the students by hiking their fees.Instead of making education a right, government is making it a commodity, and is running away from its responsibilities of ‘social welfare’.
To understand the whole issue let’s have a look at the education related policies:

The formal education system was introduced by Macaulay for creating a class of persons who are Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, opinion, morals and in intellect…to serve the interests of Britishers. Today also, our education system, in spite of liberating the masses from reactionary ideas and dominance, is continuing on the same lines. To understand the education policy in India “National Policy Of Education” (1986) is a turning point which supported the funding of the institutions by both public and private sector as well as ‘voluntary agencies’, thus paved the way for commercialization and privatization of education. It also proposed a ‘National Core Curriculum’ under which the rich diverse culture and languages of our people were sacrificed. NPE also purposed the banning of elections to further suppress the voice of dissent. Instead of universal education, the concept of ‘model’ schools was introduced which gave rise to the double standard education.